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ATLAS Center hosts a new milestone in unmanned aviation in Spain


March 23rd 2015

The facilities hosted the first beyond line of sight (BLOS) flight of a UAV weighing more than 25 kg in segregated airspace, made by the company UAV Navigation


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The ATLAS Test Flight Cente, supported by the Andalusian Foundation for Aerospace Development (FADA), hosted on 14th and 15th of January a new milestone in unmanned aviation in Spain, after the Spanish company UAV navigation succeeded in demonstrating the safe operation of an automatic unmanned aircraft system (UAS/RPAS) in a flight to 20 km beyond visual range whilst complying with the strict Spanish aviation regulations.

The flights took place under direction of Seville’s Air Traffic Control Center (ACC) in Seville, of the Regional Bureau of Southern Air Navigation of AENA, and in collaboration with ATLAS and VITO, the Belgian company which is the final customer of the UAV.

It is the first flight of its kind to be authorized and executed in Spain and is an important step for the integration of drones in the airspace. The unmanned aircraft, developed by UAV Navigation, weighs 45 kg and cruises at 130 km/h. It has a ceiling of 3,500 m, a range of 400 km. and incorporates an autopilot with more than 50,000 flying hours and features both physical and logical redundancy.

In order to obtain a special certificate of airworthiness and the flight authorization a detailed aeronautical safety study of the operation was carried out, taking into account the basic characteristics of the aircraft and its equipment and systems. In order to ensure flight safety, a description of the experimental flights to be executed, flight profiles, operational characteristics, conditions and limitations were also studied and documented.



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